Sales Performance Management – Explained

Sales performance management (SPM) is the practice of tracking employee’s performance with the aim of spotting their weak skills so they could be educated and guided accordingly in order to boost their performance and productivity by applying special sales analytics to forecast and estimate sales practices.

A key SPM’s objective is to educate salespeople and motivate them to set their goals and improve customer service.

Software solutions used in SPM usually include components for setting goals, plans, feedback, skill development, performance review, tracking sales quotas, incentive compensation, territories, forecasting, and job evaluation.

When thinking about purchasing a sales performance management software solution, there are plenty of vendors, and choosing the best one for your organization is not an easy task.

In this article, you can learn more about Centrical’s (formerly GamEffective’s) learning and development gamification software and find out why you should consider buying it.

How can we use gamification for sales performance management?

Gamification creates intrinsic motivation and learning by using digital motivation and real-time feedback with the aim of improving salespeople’s performance and productivity. Taking the insights and goals from SPM, gamification ensures employees are motivated and engaged.

There are several steps that keep employees motivated and engaged, and thus better performers at work with increased productivity. They are as follows:

Setting goals

Goal setting is the first step in SPM gamification, the one where sales managers define specific and clear goals for their employees and make sure that they align the company’s goals. These are usually short-term goals, as they continuously change. It is important to communicate with employees regarding any change and help them focus on certain activities and track their performance in real-time. Employees understand these goals better and stay more engaged if there is regular communication between them and their managers.

These personal goals help every employee feel like a winner; when they have support and resources to improve their skills, they are eager to perform better in order to achieve their goals.

Motivation

One of the ways in which gamification successfully motivates employees is intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation, rewarding high-performing employees for winning a competition, is no longer as successful as it used to be. With gamification, salespeople get game narratives, social proof, and other game mechanics that boost motivation and engagement aside from being rewarded for hard work.

Feedback

Salespeople receive regular feedback for their performance; this helps them track how well they perform and how close they are to meeting their personal goals. Gamification provides feedback- fair, objective and transparent. It is given in a timely manner, so salespeople have enough time to learn how to improve their performance.

Learning and coaching

To improve their performance, salespeople must constantly learn and know their products, technologies, and practices well in order to ensure excellent customer service and to know how to solve problems. Gamification provides micro-learning options on a daily basis that is effective, yet doesn’t consume much time, using engaging and fun learning materials.

Analytics

Sales managers need appropriate indicators and measurements for creating proper judgments and conclusions which are a must for making the right decisions. Analytics are an essential part of SPM gamification- they help in setting goals, determining who needs more training, and understanding how learning material and KPIs can be optimized.